Growing Your Business

If you own or run a business and would love to see it grow faster and be more profitable then let's have a chat. We work with the smallest and the largest of organisations, focussing on business improvement. We all have a successful track record in running and transforming businesses. Contact me today for a discussion of your strategy, leadership, operations, online, sales or marketing needs.

In the meantime, we hope you enjoy our information below. We welcome your comments.

Who's heard of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"? How about the name "Robert Kiyosaki"? If you are an investor of any sorts, especially in property, you will probably have by now read one of Mr Kiyosaki's books. He has a way of simplifying, in an elegant way, an important financial concept - how to create income. I found it very interesting and it has certainly helped me educate friends and family on wealth creation and achieving financial independence - an important goal for many people.

The diagram here is his "Cashflow Quadrant". Most people create income in one or more of these 4 ways.

The top left represents most people. They learn a trade or professional and then get hired as an employee, earning an income. Their income depends on their value to their employer, their seniority and the hours they work. Their income is effectively capped, but so is their financial risk. At most, they can lose their job and have to search for another suitable role. Their wealth is effectively limited by the time they spend working on the job. And, it is not so easy for them to take a break whenever they want. They also tend to pay the most in tax, another wealth limiter!

The bottom left represents those people who effectively end up employing themselves because of their trade or profession. They don't have the risk of losing their job, but they too are limited by the number of hours they can work. They can create more effective tax structures to improve their earnings, but they cannot easily scale and grow their business. They also find it hard to take a break whenever they want. Unless they can make the jump to the next type of income structure they also may find it hard to exit their business and extract even more value from their talent.

The quadrants on the right both represent income structures where your time is no longer the key to income creation. This means you work "on" a business rather than "in" a business and you can choose to spend your time in finding more opportunities or at leisure. Both these structures use leverage to scale your wealth creation effectively creating no boundaries to your income creation efforts. They are also easier to reduce your tax! The big challenge with both income structures on the right is that they represent the most risk. They require the right mental attitude and the right assessment of risk. Otherwise they become wealth destruction opportunities!

For business people looking to profitably grow their business the top right quadrant is the key objective - where you own and leverage a system of some type. The system you own should be protected from competitors - by using legal or technology barriers to entry or choosing a system that is hard to copy. Is the reason your customers buy from you sustainable and hard to copy? Do you have good people and good processes? Do you solve a problem or address a need better than anyone else? "Better" may be due to price or it may be service or quality - it depends on what your customers value most.

Financial literacy is very important in creating, buying and running a business. I encourage business owners to think like an investor when looking at their P&L and balance sheet. What are your key drivers of profit? How do you drive them in the right direction? Is it people? Is it marketing? Is it technology? What are the questions an investor would ask you? When was the last time you asked questions like: What really sets me apart from my competitors? Why don't I increase prices? Why don't I reduce these costs? Do I really need that? Is there another way to do this?

Most wealthy people are either business owners or investors. This give them the maximum opportunity to create wealth and to spend their time on other activities. If every business person spent a little more time thinking like a potential investor in their business rather than just as the current business owner, I suspect improvement opportunities would come a bit easier.

Finally, if you do nothing else this week, start teaching your children to think like investors. Maybe encourage them to read some of Mr Kiyosaki's books. Let me know below if you have been influenced by the cashflow quadrant thinking in your business.

Chris Pattas lives in beautiful Melbourne, Australia. He is happily married
with two children. Chris is a successful business leader who enjoys helping
organisations reach their full potential. Whether it is driving greater
profit or sales, growing market share in competitive industries, inspiring
executives to achieve great things, negotiating compelling business deals
or working as a board member implementing exciting change programs, he
knows how to get the most out of any organisation. Chris has worked in
various product and service industries including: advertising, software,
IT&T, travel & tourism, utilities and telecommunications. His interests and
expertise include: leadership & strategy, sales & marketing, online &
social media, science & technology, travel & tourism, photography and
music.

It's the perennial challenge for any business. How do you keep your employees motivated and engaged so that they come to work every day and give you 110 percent? How do you ensure your distributors or channel partners provide your business with loyalty and profitable revenue growth?

This month the Australian government introduced new privacy rules for all businesses and government organisations. The penalties for not following these new laws include not only hefty fines but bad media publicity for organisations who don't take care. Below are six key points your business should follow under the new privacy laws.

There is a little known trend happening in private businesses around Australia. About 70% of small to medium sized businesses are owned by "baby boomers". They are about to reach retirement age and many of them have succession issues. A tidal wave of "business for sale" events is about to hit the market. If you have a business with revenues between $10 million to $40 million per annum and no clear succession plan, then maybe we should have a chat. Here's why...

Neil has a thriving accounting practise in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and focusses primarily on business clients with a turnover of at least $10 million per annum. But, he admitted to me over coffee a few months back that he had 3 key challenges he was facing. He was finding it hard to recruit good staff. He was spending too much time on compliance work. And, thirdly, he wanted to scale his practise beyond the 5 partners but was finding it difficult because he didn't have time to find new clients!

"Fabulous!" That was the simple answer I received from Sandra last week. She is the owner of a successful financial services business which turns over $13 million each year. She had responded to my question about how she found the new way of working I had introduced her to. "It sounded obvious to me when you showed me. But, it is very satisfying to see it actually work in practise. We've stopped selling. And we are now getting more business than ever."

I read an inspiring article today by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos - a very successful company that sells shoes online. The article was called "Going to Extremes for Customers" and highlights the importance of customer service to Zappos' success.

Tony goes into detail about the key reasons Zappos has been able to achieve incredible profitable revenue growth and cites the adherence to certain customer service principles as the key drivers to this growth. In brief, the 7 ways to achieve exceptional customer service are:

I meet smart business people and interesting entrepreneurs every day. In my discussions with them I notice that many of them ask the same key questions when thinking about their business.

You may be surprised to find that these questions are not the traditional textbook ones but tend to be more practical versions. The questions are simple enough ones to discuss at that next leadership forum or the next board meeting or the next sales catchup. Here are 11 questions every entrepreneur should be asking.

Gary Vaynerchuk is a good story teller. He is a successful business person and a smart marketer. He is telling the world that traditional Marketing practices are dying because the "world got a lot noisier" and people are consuming very differently today compared to the past.

Smart marketers understand that social media is not a "push" distribution channel but a platform to listen, research and then tell a story to engage with your audience. Traditional media advertising that uses TV, radio, billboards, banner advertising, even Google Adwords is losing it's effectiveness to the newer social media platforms.

Seth Godin is a real Marketing guru. His blog is read by millions each day. I thought I would reproduce here one of his latest gems. These 3 questions are an inspiring collection of questions to ask any marketing team, business development team, fundraising team or the public relations folks.

If you love this type of advice please read his blog - it is truly inspiring. These 3 questions are easy to ask and the answers very compelling and important for every business and team. How do you rate?

Do you need more hours in the day? Are you disappointing people because you keep delaying key tasks? Is it hard for you to finish one task before starting another? Is it hard for you to prioritise tasks? Do you want more free time?

Probably the most undervalued business advice we ever give is to assist people with better managing their time. It seems simple, right? Just plan better. Or, just do the important stuff before the non-urgent stuff. Or, don't answer the phone. Or, just close your door.

Well, this is what we do to make sure you become more productive every day...

I already know the answer to my favourite question. Even before they say anything. They never let me down! "Winning New Business" or something similar is what they all say. Sometimes it takes a while to come out after all the cashflow, employee issues, competitor tactics and market conditions are discussed. Inevitably, though, the discussion ends with the biggest challenge of them all - winning new business.

After a few seconds of silence and an engaged look, I ask "Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

As I was leaving a meeting last week, one of my clients grabbed me and asked me "Hey Chris. Can you spend 5 minutes looking at the presentation I need to deliver tomorrow?".

I happily obliged. Little did I know, though, that I would be giving her some feedback for the next 5 hours!

Denise ended up redoing her presentation and we spent a few hours practising the 20 minute delivery which she had promised she would do. We filled quite a few whiteboards with information and tips related to delivering an awesome presentation in person. Some of the key things we discussed I decided to reproduce below as I get asked by many of my clients to review their proposals and presentations.

Please enjoy the quick overview below and let me know if you have other tips on how to deliver an engaging and powerful presentation.

A day does not go by without a client saying to me, in one way or another, that they want to grow their business revenues. Some also talk about reducing their costs in the face of competition.

So, how do you increase your revenue and reduce your costs without doing something the business has never done before and taking on new risks?

The simple answer is to take another look at what you are doing in terms of Customer Experience. Every item you send, every moment you speak, every call you answer and every email you write either enhances or degrades the way you come across to prospective and existing customers. Every one of your team members, through their behaviour with customers and suppliers either makes the customer experience better or worse... and this is how you can affect your revenues or business costs.

In the quick slideshow below see the simple truths about customer experience and how they affect your business.

Business owners and CEOs continue to rank technology change as one of the top focus areas for their business. Nothing is more pervasive today as the internet and the online economy. It is always interesting to see the latest online or internet trends that are presented by the KPCB organisation. I have selected the graphs that are most interesting to me below to highlight the following key online trends.

Collectively and over the long term, the following 12 technologies could account for trillions of dollars of economic impact. That's why you need to watch them now.

Look at the history of entrepreneurship and you see a repeated story of technology disrupting industries. With the ever accelerating rate of advancement in many fields, the chance of future disruptions over most industries becomes almost a certainty.

So where should you pay attention? Here's a list of 12 disruptive technologies as identified recently by the McKinsey Global Institute. According to its estimate, the total potential impact could be between $14 trillion and $33 trillion a year by 2025.

How do you acquire more customers and grow your sales without selling? How do you develop deep and long lasting customer relationships that deliver amazing loyalty and returns? How do you make what your business sells so attractive that customers are delighted to be a great reference for you?

John McKinstry, Managing Director of nem, has just authored the book "Treat Your Customers Like Animals" which explains how the use of the unique VALUE Encounter methodology in many businesses leads to better engagement with clients, more word-of-mouth referral sales leads and sustainable and profitable customer loyalty.

​I can't begin to count the number of presentations from sales people that begin with headlines like "This is who we are", "This is what we do", "These are our products and services" or "This is what makes us unique". What is worse is that marketers and business strategists sometimes start their conversations in this way as well. They should know better. All business strategy starts with the same two questions - and they should make no mention of the company or its products or its people!

Does social media help a small to medium business (SMB) get exposure and drive brand awareness? That is the question on many marketers minds. There is much research that shows the great benefits that social media brings far outweigh the costs or the time involved.

Many of us have heard of business loyalty programs. But, do they really benefit the business running the program in terms of increasing customer loyalty? That is, do they encourage customers to do more business more frequently with an organisation. And, do they increase referrals? In other words, do they generate more sales and profit than the investment required?